LISA RUEFF was teaching English in Japan and traveling all around Asia when she ended up in India some 15 years ago. Within days, she stumbled upon yoga. It changed her life, as it often does for a lot of people. But it wasn't just a physical and mental transformation.

Ever since then, it has steered the 43-year-old yoga teacher's life into a mission of helping others, from working with Virgin Group founder Richard Branson's philanthropic organization, to becoming executive director of musician Michael Franti's Do It For the Love foundation, to organizing yoga-volunteer retreats through her company, Yoga Ventures. Most recently, she has been leading retreats to Haiti, where she is nearly finished building the Jacmel Children Center, a school and home for orphans displaced by the devastating 2010 earthquake.

A huge fan of Franti's music, Rueff met the Bay Area musician and social justice activist at a yoga event and invited him and his partner Sara Agah to dinner aboard the Sausalito houseboat she shares with her husband, Philip Schneider. They began talking about a way to get adults and children with advanced stages of life-threatening illnesses to live music performances. Do It For the Love was born last year.

Q: Where did you get your sense of philanthropy, of giving back, from?

A: I guess my childhood. When I was growing up and I was quite young, a friend had an injury so I started to visit her in the hospital. You could tell that she just was going through such a hard time and was in so much pain. I would come and do really goofy things to try and cheer her up. I think that was one of my first times of seeing how one individual can make an impact.

Q: Why did you start your service-oriented yoga retreats?

A: The earthquake was in January 2010 and I went down in May 2010, as soon as I could find a program I could go down with. The second day I was there, I learned about a woman named Bonite Affriany. She's like the Mother Teresa of the area. I started volunteering with her, and I was blown away by what she was able to accomplish. So that's when I came up with the idea to organize a trip to come back down. I brought a group of yoga students and volunteers in October. ... It's the idea of taking your yoga off your mat and how you can make it a part of giving back to yourself and to others. And making a tangible difference.

Q: What do you enjoy about your work with Do It For the Love?

A: There is literally nothing else I would have ever wanted to do more in my life. It so speaks to me just because I've witnessed how transformative and uplifting music is. What a gift it is, especially for people who are in advanced stages of life-threatening illnesses. It's not just the recipient; it's their caretakers, their loved ones who are suffering just as much.